Nothing random Bennett Cerf and the publishing house he built
"At midcentury, everyone knew Bennett Cerf: witty, beloved, middle-aged panelist on What's My Line?, whom TV brought into America's homes each week. They didn't know the handsome, driven young man of the 1920s who'd vowed to become a great publisher, and a decade later, was. By then, he'd signed Eug...
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| Format: | Books Print Book |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
New York, NY :
Random House,
[2026]
|
| Edition: | First edition. |
| Subjects: | |
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|---|---|---|---|
| 001 | on1522758867 | ||
| 003 | OCoLC | ||
| 005 | 20260617125000.0 | ||
| 008 | 250523s2026 nyuacf b 001 0beng | ||
| 010 | |a 2025024799 | ||
| 020 | |a 9781400060276 |q hardcover | ||
| 020 | |a 1400060273 |q hardcover | ||
| 020 | |z 9780593978375 |q electronic book | ||
| 035 | |a (OCoLC)1522758867 | ||
| 040 | |a DLC |b eng |e rda |c DLC |d OCLCO |d TOH |d OCO |d LNC |d IUO |d OCLCO |d IUK |d YDX |d CLE |d JTH |d CNCAR |d ZLM | ||
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| 082 | 0 | 0 | |a 070.5092 |a B |2 23/eng/20250523 |
| 100 | 1 | |a Feldman, Gayle, |e author. | |
| 245 | 1 | 0 | |a Nothing random : |b Bennett Cerf and the publishing house he built / |c Gayle Feldman. |
| 250 | |a First edition. | ||
| 264 | 1 | |a New York, NY : |b Random House, |c [2026] | |
| 300 | |a xxxviii, 1032 pages, 8 unnumbered pages of plates : |b illustrations (some color), portraits ; |c 24 cm | ||
| 334 | |a single unit |b mono |0 http://id.loc.gov/vocabulary/issuance/mono | ||
| 336 | |a text |b txt |2 rdacontent |0 http://id.loc.gov/vocabulary/contentTypes/txt | ||
| 336 | |a still image |b sti |2 rdacontent | ||
| 337 | |a unmediated |b n |2 rdamedia |0 http://id.loc.gov/vocabulary/mediaTypes/n | ||
| 338 | |a volume |b nc |2 rdacarrier |0 http://id.loc.gov/vocabulary/carriers/nc | ||
| 353 | |a bibliography |b bibliography |0 http://id.loc.gov/vocabulary/msupplcont/bibliography | ||
| 353 | |a index |b index |0 http://id.loc.gov/vocabulary/msupplcont/index | ||
| 504 | |a Includes bibliographical references (pages 843-982) and index. | ||
| 505 | 0 | |a Part One 1898-1919, A Rather Unusual Specimen: Inheritance -- A Pretty Smart Kid -- Columbia -- Part Two 1920-1940, From Playboy of the Western World to Man of Property: Love Wrong -- Liveright -- The Book Boys -- Embarkations -- "The Random House" -- They Float -- Dentist, Patient-and Publisher -- One-Book Odyssey -- Daring Young Men -- Glamour Girls -- Ready for the Big Things -- For Love or Money -- Part Three 1941-1951, Try and Stop Me: Patriotism and Profit -- Mr. Chirp in the Lyons Den -- Golden Era for a Brownstone Palace -- A New Voice, Another Home -- Friends and Enemies -- Some Kind of Progress -- A Horse for a Long Race -- Midcentury -- What's Not His Line -- Gatsby in Paradise -- Part Four 1952-1959, "And the Mystery Guest Is...": What's New -- Bombshells and Whoppers -- Transitions and Home Truths -- Energy -- Families and Fieldtrips -- Feds and Nymphets -- Ideal Publisher -- Party Cats and Cats in Hats -- Hellos and Goodbyes -- Everything Public -- Two Acts, One Finale -- Part Five 1960-1971, Real Business: Knopfs -- Grow or Die -- Appetites and Digestion -- Go Down, Goodbye -- Heartburn and Heartache -- Red Hot Fun -- Divorces and Disagreements -- Backing Horses -- Big Money, Different Equations -- Big Business -- Successor and Sale -- Sinatra -- Done Deal -- Blood Red and Black/White -- Interventions -- Turbulence -- Making It -- Exits and Entrances -- Confessions and Controversies -- Palace to Tower Block -- Famous and Fading -- Epilogue: Revolving Doors. | |
| 520 | |a "At midcentury, everyone knew Bennett Cerf: witty, beloved, middle-aged panelist on What's My Line?, whom TV brought into America's homes each week. They didn't know the handsome, driven young man of the 1920s who'd vowed to become a great publisher, and a decade later, was. By then, he'd signed Eugene O'Neill, Gertrude Stein, William Faulkner, and had fought the landmark censorship case that gave Americans the freedom to read James Joyce's Ulysses. With his best friend and lifelong business partner Donald Klopfer, and other young Jewish entrepreneurs like the Knopfs and Simon & Schuster, Cerf remade the book business: what was published, and how. In 1925, he and Klopfer had bought the Modern Library and turned it into an institution, then founded Random House, which eventually became a home to Truman Capote, Ralph Ellison, Ayn Rand, Dr. Seuss, Toni Morrison, and many more. Even before TV, Cerf was a bestselling author and columnist as well as publisher; the show super-charged his celebrity. A brilliant social networker and major influencer before such terms existed, he connected books-Broadway-TV-Hollywood-politics. A fervent democratizer, he published 'high,' 'low,' and wide, and from the roaring twenties to the swinging sixties collected an incredible array of friends, having a fabulous time along the way. For four decades, Gayle Feldman has reported on publishing for Publishers Weekly, The New York Times, The Bookseller, and others. Using new and deeply researched material from 200 interviews and many archives, she recalls Bennett Cerf to vibrant life, bringing booklovers into his world and time, and finally giving a true American original his due"-- Provided by publisher. | ||
| 600 | 1 | 0 | |a Cerf, Bennett, |d 1898-1971 |
| 650 | 0 | |a Publishers and publishing |z United States |v Biography. | |
| 650 | 0 | |a Popular culture |z United States |y 20th century. | |
| 655 | 7 | |a Biographies. |2 lcgft | |
| 758 | |1 http://id.loc.gov/resources/instances/24216626 | ||
| 758 | |4 http://id.loc.gov/ontologies/bibframe/instanceOf |1 http://id.loc.gov/resources/works/24216626 | ||
| 776 | 0 | 8 | |i Online version |4 http://id.loc.gov/entities/relationships/onlineversion |a Feldman, Gayle |t Nothing random |b First edition |d New York, NY : Random House, 2026 |z 9780593978375 |w (DLC) 2025024800 |
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| 949 | |a schlow |b SANBION |c Cerf |d i |e 39635104889170 |f 820378 |g loc |j 06/05/2026 | ||
| 999 | |a 519708 | ||
